Obamacare Questions

[ashurbanipal]

We can distinguish our rights because they are spelled out in the Constitution. I don't see Healthcare anywhere in it.

I think I already asked this question in this thread, but to my other interlocutor. So, suppose the bill of rights was repealed. Would we then have no rights? I think most people would agree that as a matter of fact we would still have rights. Our government would no longer recognize them, in much the same way that someone who isn't paying attention may fail to recognize any number of other things about their environment.

Conversely, if an ammendment was ratified which made health care a right, would you then agree that it is in fact a right? If so, your position seems entirely too legalistic. What people write down on pieces of paper, however special those pieces of paper might be, doesn't necessarily correspond with what rights are.

You can't just make a right up and then say "If you can't disprove it then it must be a right".

Of course not. However, there are ways that we come to recognize rights. One way to recognize a right is that it's something that societies would naturally have to ensure in order to ensure the good of the society. Another is that it's something that would have to be protected against someone attaining power in one domain and using it in another to strip people of those rights. Health care seems to be recognizable under both criteria.

 

[ashurbanipal]

Making absurd comments and assumptions that can't be defeated with actual logic doesn't make your point stand. Health Care is not a right.

I've made a perfectly good argument, and furthermore, one that's logically valid. I can even symbolize it if you like and show you how it's valid on a truth table (though that will have to wait until later this afternoon).

If I have made absurd comments, you ought to be able to say why in such a manner that any reply by my is obviously incorrect to all and sundry. I doubt anything I've said would be thought obviously incorrect by anyone who read them.

 

[davidtaylorjr]

I've made a perfectly good argument, and furthermore, one that's logically valid. I can even symbolize it if you like and show you how it's valid on a truth table (though that will have to wait until later this afternoon).

If I have made absurd comments, you ought to be able to say why in such a manner that any reply by my is obviously incorrect to all and sundry. I doubt anything I've said would be thought obviously incorrect by anyone who read them.

For one, you don't know how our government works.

 

[Heebie Jeebie]

I think I already asked this question in this thread, but to my other interlocutor. So, suppose the bill of rights was repealed. Would we then have no rights?

Yes we would lose all the Constitutional rights spelled out in them in them because they would have been repealed. How that would happen is beyond me but if you just wanted to suppose it could then we would lose those rights.

There is no Right to Healthcare anywhere in the Constitution. You want it to be a Right then get an Amendment passed making it one. It's not like it could not become a Right but at the moment it is not.

 

[Heebie Jeebie]

Of course not. However, there are ways that we come to recognize rights. One way to recognize a right is that it's something that societies would naturally have to ensure in order to ensure the good of the society. Another is that it's something that would have to be protected against someone attaining power in one domain and using it in another to strip people of those rights. Health care seems to be recognizable under both criteria.

Anything you name can meet those criteria. Housing, food, clothing, electricity, anything. Are you proposing that anything under the sun is now a Right?

 

[ashurbanipal]

For one, you don't know how our government works.

Two replies:

1) I think you're wrong, but,

2) Even if you're correct, so what? I'm not making an argument about what is the case, but rather about what should be the case. I'm arguing that health care ought to be a right recognized by our society (and hence, enjoy government protection). I'm not arguing that health care is currently guaranteed.

 

[ashurbanipal]

Yes we would lose all the Constitutional rights spelled out in them in them because they would have been repealed. How that would happen is beyond me but if you just wanted to suppose it could then we would lose those rights.

I disagree, and I think most people's intuitions run counter to your point. The reason those rights are in the constitution is that they're natural rights which all human beings are supposed to enjoy, by virtue of being human in a society of humans. The constitution describes some of those rights, it does not create them. If the first amendment were to be repealed, I would still have the right to free speech, for instance. Government or other institutions might fail to recognize and even violate those rights, but that doesn't mean the rights no longer exist. A right is an abstract principle which applies to human laws. It dictates how the power of government and the power of other individuals or institutions may, and may not, should, and should not, be applied to other individuals or institutions. As such, legalism such as you have described seems fataly flawed right from the start.

There is no Right to Healthcare anywhere in the Constitution. You want it to be a Right then get an Amendment passed making it one. It's not like it could not become a Right but at the moment it is not.

Indeed, there is no such right described. That doesn't mean one doesn't exist. The constitution simply doesn't recognize it.

Anything you name can meet those criteria. Housing, food, clothing, electricity, anything. Are you proposing that anything under the sun is now a Right?

No, not anything. But housing, food, clothing do fit. We should insure a minimal standard of those things for our citizens. Electricity does not fit, since human beings can survive without electricity.

 

[gypster]

No, not anything. But housing, food, clothing do fit. We should insure a minimal standard of those things for our citizens. Electricity does not fit, since human beings can survive without electricity.

As a person with a heart and eyes to see the suffering going on in the world, I would love to see everyone who is alive in possession of adequate food, shelter and other necessities of life which do include basic health care, however.. this presents a dichotomy...

For a third party to provide something free of service to those who cannot afford it, while it is altruistic in intent, must be coercive in execution. Its implication is as such that someone else must be forced to bear the cost for another person they don't even know (which to me is the highest crime, revoking choice in who to help).

Prior to mandatory health coverage, I could elect to not participate in the privately-socialized health insurance industry, and I did so, even when I have various non-life threatening conditions and one previous life threatening condition that, in the 90's when things were different maybe, I was able to appeal to a local Christian hospital for charity and have the surgery covered. I'm not Christian by any meaning of the word, nor did they ever ask me if I was one, but that's besides the point....

I can't, and won't, ever agree that access to healthcare can be a right when such action takes away, by coercion, the rights of others (life, liberty AND property - the result of one's time and efforts upon the natural world or reality).

TO THE OP:

There are many economic ramifications.The issues of morality and rights as supposed above aside, my main issue with any managed care, including what we had in the pre-Obama Care days, is the escalation of overall cost and lack of competition between care providers.

 

[ashurbanipal]

As a person with a heart and eyes to see the suffering going on in the world, I would love to see everyone who is alive in possession of adequate food, shelter and other necessities of life which do include basic health care,

In light of the above and your answers below, it seems there is a conflict between your proverbial head and proverbial heart. As is very often the case, owing to the relative complexity of the former, I think it is the head that goes wrong. My further replies will explain why I think so in this case.

For a third party to provide something free of service to those who cannot afford it, while it is altruistic in intent, must be coercive in execution.

I'm not sure it must be. I do stuff for free for people all the time, and no one coerces me. I'm sure you do as well. Everyone does.

Its implication is as such that someone else must be forced to bear the cost for another person they don't even know (which to me is the highest crime, revoking choice in who to help).

Why is this the highest crime? As stated, and taken as a principle, it seems quite easy to counterexample. Look, suppose parents give birth to a child, and then decide they don't want to do anything for it. It is discovered to have died as a result of having been laid in a corner and completely ignored for several days, because they chose not to do anything for it. On this view, it seems hard to say why they should be punished. If it is the highest crime to "revoke" (by which I think you mean "impose") a choice about who to help, anyone who tries to say the parents have a responsibility to help the child or face severe consequences is guilty of just that crime. We should, by this principle, be punishing those who try to force the parents to do anything for the child. Since the child is just born, it's kind of hard to argue that your qualification saves your position here; the parents don't know the child as a person.

I can't, and won't, ever agree that access to healthcare can be a right when such action takes away, by coercion, the rights of others (life, liberty AND property - the result of one's time and efforts upon the natural world or reality).

Strange that you would think so. Do you also think that the accused have no right to a fair trial unless they can afford to pay the judge, jury, prosecutor, clerk, and bailiff themselves?

Anyway, the concept of property seems fairly complicated. If you're saying that my property is constituted by the results of my efforts upon the natural world, then I'm afraid I don't own very much. I think I may own a few chunks of mud and a couple of plants. But I have purchased a house, and a rather large collection of books, and so on. I did so with money I received in compensation for a regular job (well, OK, I borrowed money from a bank to purchase my house, but I make payments per the mortgage agreement). None of this is working on the natural world by my own efforts, however. Why don't I own those?

Frankly, I think it's overly simplistic to believe that what one possesses, in a complex society such as ours, is genuinely all due to one's own efforts. We benefit enormously by living in a society of other human beings. The agreement is that we give up some of what we earn in order to invest in a much greater social benefit, which in turn bestows on each of us a nearly unfathomable benefit. I say "each of us" and that's almost right. It doesn't quite work out that way for everyone, and when it doesn't, there is at least potentially an injustice to be sorted out.

Here's an easy thought-experiment to see what I mean. Imagine taking someone like George Soros or Bill Gates out of this time and place and transport them back to, say, Palestine in 300 B.C. We'll make them young and able again, and watch their life unfold. Does Bill Gates, in that situation, build Microsoft Corporation and receive untold billions of dollars? Of course not.

But why not? If the idea is that Bill Gates earned his wealth and property by working on the natural world all by himself, and thus his property is the result solely of his own labor, he absolutely should build Microsoft Corporation in Palestine in 300 B.C. He should be able to do the same at any time and place.

But clearly, he cannot, because the right social inputs are not present in Palestine in 300 B.C. Bill Gates benefits fabulously from those social inputs, and therefore owes some of what he has received back to the society responsible for providing him those inputs.

Finally, if I take you at your word that you cannot agree that healthcare could be a right, this seems tantamount to an admission of unreasonableness. Now, maybe that's not so bad when it comes to some stuff. No amount of argument would ever convince me that I don't love my wife, for example. I'm unreasonable when it comes to that, and rightly so--reason simply doesn't enter into it.

But whether healthcare (or anything) is a right or not seems like a domain where reason should enter. I know, at least generally, what it would take to convince me that health care is not a right. Some good, well-reasoned arguments in which I could find no error would do it.

 

[gypster]

In light of the above and your answers below, it seems there is a conflict between your proverbial head and proverbial heart. As is very often the case, owing to the relative complexity of the former, I think it is the head that goes wrong. My further replies will explain why I think so in this case.



I'm not sure it must be. I do stuff for free for people all the time, and no one coerces me. I'm sure you do as well. Everyone does.



Why is this the highest crime? As stated, and taken as a principle, it seems quite easy to counterexample. Look, suppose parents give birth to a child, and then decide they don't want to do anything for it. It is discovered to have died as a result of having been laid in a corner and completely ignored for several days, because they chose not to do anything for it. On this view, it seems hard to say why they should be punished. If it is the highest crime to "revoke" (by which I think you mean "impose") a choice about who to help, anyone who tries to say the parents have a responsibility to help the child or face severe consequences is guilty of just that crime. We should, by this principle, be punishing those who try to force the parents to do anything for the child. Since the child is just born, it's kind of hard to argue that your qualification saves your position here; the parents don't know the child as a person.



Strange that you would think so. Do you also think that the accused have no right to a fair trial unless they can afford to pay the judge, jury, prosecutor, clerk, and bailiff themselves?

Anyway, the concept of property seems fairly complicated. If you're saying that my property is constituted by the results of my efforts upon the natural world, then I'm afraid I don't own very much. I think I may own a few chunks of mud and a couple of plants. But I have purchased a house, and a rather large collection of books, and so on. I did so with money I received in compensation for a regular job (well, OK, I borrowed money from a bank to purchase my house, but I make payments per the mortgage agreement). None of this is working on the natural world by my own efforts, however. Why don't I own those?

Frankly, I think it's overly simplistic to believe that what one possesses, in a complex society such as ours, is genuinely all due to one's own efforts. We benefit enormously by living in a society of other human beings. The agreement is that we give up some of what we earn in order to invest in a much greater social benefit, which in turn bestows on each of us a nearly unfathomable benefit. I say "each of us" and that's almost right. It doesn't quite work out that way for everyone, and when it doesn't, there is at least potentially an injustice to be sorted out.

Here's an easy thought-experiment to see what I mean. Imagine taking someone like George Soros or Bill Gates out of this time and place and transport them back to, say, Palestine in 300 B.C. We'll make them young and able again, and watch their life unfold. Does Bill Gates, in that situation, build Microsoft Corporation and receive untold billions of dollars? Of course not.

But why not? If the idea is that Bill Gates earned his wealth and property by working on the natural world all by himself, and thus his property is the result solely of his own labor, he absolutely should build Microsoft Corporation in Palestine in 300 B.C. He should be able to do the same at any time and place.

But clearly, he cannot, because the right social inputs are not present in Palestine in 300 B.C. Bill Gates benefits fabulously from those social inputs, and therefore owes some of what he has received back to the society responsible for providing him those inputs.

Finally, if I take you at your word that you cannot agree that healthcare could be a right, this seems tantamount to an admission of unreasonableness. Now, maybe that's not so bad when it comes to some stuff. No amount of argument would ever convince me that I don't love my wife, for example. I'm unreasonable when it comes to that, and rightly so--reason simply doesn't enter into it.

But whether healthcare (or anything) is a right or not seems like a domain where reason should enter. I know, at least generally, what it would take to convince me that health care is not a right. Some good, well-reasoned arguments in which I could find no error would do it.

While you bring up some interesting, and a few absurd points, I believe we are at an impasse neither of us is going to change the other's mind and most of all I fundamentally disagree with your assertation that I'm in any kind of contradiction of my own ethics and thought.

 

[ashurbanipal]

While you bring up some interesting, and a few absurd points, I believe we are at an impasse neither of us is going to change the other's mind and most of all I fundamentally disagree with your assertation that I'm in any kind of contradiction of my own ethics and thought.

If that's your response, I agree it's unlikely you're going to change my mind. It's not my aim to change yours, however.

 

[solletica]

Why? It's not the role of the government.

It's irrelevant. The US govt. is tightly controlled by insurance cos., and hence is primarily answerable only to them (and other corporations).

That's why any healthcare system where the govt. is extensively involved is bound to be bent against the people in favor of the insurers, and that is precisely what Obamacare is.

The only beneficial health care insurance system that could exist in the US is an illegal one, i. e. one free of govt. control.

 

[solletica]

As a person with a heart and eyes to see the suffering going on in the world, I would love to see everyone who is alive in possession of adequate food, shelter and other necessities of life which do include basic health care, however.. this presents a dichotomy...

For a third party to provide something free of service to those who cannot afford it, while it is altruistic in intent, must be coercive in execution. Its implication is as such that someone else must be forced to bear the cost for another person they don't even know (which to me is the highest crime, revoking choice in who to help).

Prior to mandatory health coverage, I could elect to not participate in the privately-socialized health insurance industry, and I did so, even when I have various non-life threatening conditions and one previous life threatening condition that, in the 90's when things were different maybe, I was able to appeal to a local Christian hospital for charity and have the surgery covered. I'm not Christian by any meaning of the word, nor did they ever ask me if I was one, but that's besides the point....

I can't, and won't, ever agree that access to healthcare can be a right when such action takes away, by coercion, the rights of others (life, liberty AND property - the result of one's time and efforts upon the natural world or reality).

TO THE OP:

There are many economic ramifications.The issues of morality and rights as supposed above aside, my main issue with any managed care, including what we had in the pre-Obama Care days, is the escalation of overall cost and lack of competition between care providers.

There is no mandatory health insurance under O-care, because in order for something to qualify as "insurance", there has to be enforcement of member benefits, and under O-care, there isn't any (or at least none that's meaningful). O-care is simply a tax on the middle class, i. e. they pay and get nothing in return, except maybe a few dollars off their flu shot.

 

[solletica]

It is a right to get healthcare but it is not a right to get it on the backs of others.

The GOP believes that it is, i. e. that it's OK to steal money from the middle class in the form of taxes, and dump it into the pockets of their sponsors in the form of subsidies (corporate welfare, bailouts), so they can get great health care.

 

[solletica]

I would say you are unbelievable, but actually I think you pretty much sum up the opposing argument: the majority of Americans have health insurance, therefore what's the problem?

No one in the US has had real health insurance for at least 40 years, since there is no enforcement of patient benefits.

It leaves the same people who had no care without it still without care.

by increasing the number with care by millions it is improving our society. It should be noted that it would cover even more but 26 Red States have refused the Medicaid expansion payed for by the federal government, leaving millions of poor still uninsured.

On average, when accounting for insurance co. denials (both legal and illegal), Obamacare doesn't provide any coverage outside of what those without insurance already had.

It's likely it will provide less in the long run, when deductibles increase.

 

[davidtaylorjr]

The GOP believes that it is, i. e. that it's OK to steal money from the middle class in the form of taxes, and dump it into the pockets of their sponsors in the form of subsidies (corporate welfare, bailouts), so they can get great health care.

You assume two things:

1. That I am a Republican
2. That I approve of everything the Republican party does.

That being said, you realize the Democrats do the exact same thing right?

 

[Heebie Jeebie]

A right is an abstract principle which applies to human laws.

Tell that to the people of North Korea or China or Venezuela or Iran or any other nation where the rights you take for granted are not allowed. Without the Constitution protecting our rights we are at the whim of the government as to what rights we are 'allowed' to have.

 

[Heebie Jeebie]

No one in the US has had real health insurance for at least 40 years

What an absurd comment. I have had it all during that time period, and longer, and used it many times with great success.

 

[solletica]

What an absurd comment. I have had it all during that time period, and longer, and used it many times with great success.

How much are you being paid by the insurance industry to say that, i. e. "great success"?

 

[solletica]

You assume two things:

1. That I am a Republican
2. That I approve of everything the Republican party does.

That being said, you realize the Democrats do the exact same thing right?

But unlike the GOP, the Dems don't officially bill themselves as the anti-welfare party.

 

[davidtaylorjr]

But unlike the GOP, the Dems don't officially bill themselves as the anti-welfare party.

:roll:

 

[ashurbanipal]

Tell that to the people of North Korea or China or Venezuela or Iran or any other nation where the rights you take for granted are not allowed. Without the Constitution protecting our rights we are at the whim of the government as to what rights we are 'allowed' to have.

This reply simply misses the mark. Suppose those same people in China or Venezuela or North Korea were not allowed to know about or use the Pythagorean Theorem. Does this mean that the Pythagorean Theorem doesn't exist in those countries?

Most people would say that it does exist in those countries. The reason for believing this is that the actions governments would take to outlaw it are physical ones. The Pythagorean Theorem does not exist as a physical object, ergo it cannot be eradicate by physical actions.

Rights are like the Pythagorean Theorem. They are ethical and political truths which exist regardless of the actions human beings take to try to supress or eradicate them.

 

[OscarB63]

Rights are like the Pythagorean Theorem. They are ethical and political truths which exist regardless of the actions human beings take to try to supress or eradicate them.

any "right" that can be supressed or eradicated is not really a right afterall.

 

[ashurbanipal]

any "right" that can be supressed or eradicated is not really a right afterall.

Since any right can be eradicated or supressed, by this principle, there are no rights. Everyone ought to be perfectly happy with a completely totalitarian government, on such a view. I think most people will simply find that preposterous.

 

[Heebie Jeebie]

This reply simply misses the mark.

It doesn't miss the mark at all. You claim that even if we didn't have the Constitution protecting free speech we would still have that right. That is patently absurd. None of the countries I listed have any legal protection for free speech and the people there do not have the right to it.
Just because you were born into a place that currently guarantees it there are plenty of place that do not have it. The only reason we have it is the Constitution.